


Pressure

by TheAnxiousAce



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Post-Season 2, SHEITH - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 01:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9856553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAnxiousAce/pseuds/TheAnxiousAce
Summary: After the battle with Zarkon, Shiro is missing. Again. But this time, Keith can do something about it.





	

_Patience yields focus._

_Patience yields focus._

_Patience. Yields. Focus._

Keith grit his teeth and groaned, the mantra continuing in his head. The hours since Shiro’s disappearance were a blur, all motion and panic. He knew Allura had gotten them away via wormhole, but he hadn’t cared enough to ask where. He knew all the Lions were on board - even if all their paladins weren’t.

He knew he was in his room in the castle, where he had been since he’d fled from the Black Lion. He knew he was wasting time, and time was precious, and the longer it took to find Shiro, the higher the risk of him not coming back. Coming _home._

_Again._

Keith ran his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. 

_Patience yields focus._

_That really stuck with you, huh?_ He can hear Shiro ask, back on that other planet, where he’d almost lost him a second time.

 _Yes,_ he wants to say. And he wants to say it because, if he could, it would mean Shiro was back, back in the castle, back with Keith, back where he belonged. It would mean that those three words weren’t the only thing left that Keith had to hold on to.

“Just calm down,” Keith murmurs to himself. The irony hits him hard. He doesn’t think he’s felt calm since before Kerberos. 

He takes another deep breath, pushes the thought away. He’s always been good at fighting, so that’s what he does. He fights his way to calm, pushing and shoving his fear, the churning in his stomach, the _what ifs_ and _not agains_ until they are boxed up in a corner of his mind, locked away with everything else he refuses to think about. 

And when they’re finally all tucked away, he can focus.

He knows only what he stuck around long enough to find out.

Shiro is gone. 

The castle is far from their encounter with Zarkon.

The Black Lion is immobile and refuses to answer anyone’s calls. Keith had even asked - _begged_ \- Allura to try. She was the most capable to lead, not him, despite what Shiro had said.

It hadn’t responded to her, either. 

“It knows,” Keith said, his voice breaking the silence of his room. “It knows what happened to him. It _has_ to.”

The Black Lion was the key to all this, the key to finding Shiro again. How could it not know what had happened to its paladin? 

He just had to get it to talk to him.

Keith stood and stormed out of the room. His mind was made, he knew what to do. He’d gotten Black to work with him before. Now he just had to do it again. 

He avoided all the main ways to the bay where the Lions were kept. He didn’t want to run into anyone if he could help it. They were all worried, he knew that, objectively. But that didn’t matter to the fire in his belly, the fury and fear he had felt upon seeing Shiro’s seat empty. He’d lost Shiro once before and he’d be damned if he was going to go through that again.

Because this time - this time, he could _do_ something. 

Keith entered the bay. All five Lions were resting there, and he was sure he could feel their blacked-out eyes watching. 

He approached Black, frowning, glaring, heart pounding. The closer he got to the Lion, the heavier its gaze felt. The Black Lion loomed over him, judging him, and Keith felt like he was going to be crushed beneath the weight of it all. But he kept going, stopping only once he was directly in front of it, judging it just as harshly as it was judging him.

“You and me,” he said, “have to talk.”

He hadn’t expected the Black Lion to be moved and, therefore, wasn’t surprised when it remained stoic. He was surprised at the presence in his mind, though, the Black Lion filling his head until there was nothing else, just it, with all its power and patience. It was a commanding presence, and he’d felt it before, when Black had agreed to help him save Shiro from those beasts. 

He shuddered beneath it, wondered how Shiro could withstand the pressure of the Lion’s mind. Red felt nothing like this. 

“You know what Shiro wanted,” Keith said at last. Staring up at Black, he could feel his anger returning, the fire being re-lit in his stomach. The Lion knew where Shiro was, or at least what had happened to him. And it hadn’t. Done. Anything.

“You know what he wanted,” Keith said again, grinding his teeth together. “So here’s the deal. We’re going to find Shiro, you and me. We’re going to bring him home.”

There was a moment when Keith didn’t know what else to say, scrambled through his brain for the right words - words Shiro would have had, he always knew what would work - and where the Lion continued to stare ahead, unmoving. But then that moment passed, and the Black Lion’s eyes blazed yellow, and the sight of them made Keith’s fire burn stronger, too.

The Black Lion bent down, head stretched toward the Red Paladin - its paladin now, for the time being. It stretched open its jaw and the pressure in Keith’s mind backed down, just a little. 

Keith smiled, lips tight, and entered.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> This is the first fanfic I've ever written, so I'd love to know what you think. This show and the amazing fanworks are getting me out of my writer's slump, so hopefully there'll be more coming.


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